The patron saint of Mandanici is Saint Domenica, virgin and martyr, celebrated on 6 July in the cathedral dedicated to her: its origins date back to the 12th century, although the structure visible today is from the 17th century, with a Romanesque-style facade and Baroque remodelling, Baroque and Rococo stuccoes, and paintings and marble work from the Messina school.
The town also preserves the 16th-century church of Sant'Antonio Abate, whose small bell once served as a fire alarm, and the church of the Holy Trinity, also known as San Giuseppe, perhaps one of the town's oldest places of worship, likewise dating from the 12th century. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Mandanici became part of the Byzantine Empire and, after 900, of the Emirate of Sicily; with the arrival of the Normans, in 1100 Grand Count Roger I of Sicily founded the abbey dedicated to the Annunciate Virgin, run by Basilian monks, whose abbots held both spiritual and temporal power over the population for centuries.
